(ABC News: Nick Drake)

It was a hot, Indian summer’s afternoon, and I was sitting in a stuffy room in a committee meeting, when a news item from an English newspaper flashed up on my phone: there was a shooter in Christchurch. Other people glanced at their phones. But we carried on, and I noted for that moment the oddity that I had heard about something happening in New Zealand from the UK Guardian.

Bad news carries fast. For the next few hours, we waited as the news unfolded on national and international media sites. My workmates gathered in our corridor to process the horror. A colleague from Christchurch ran to her phone when she heard the street where her brother lived was under fire. I anxiously awaited texts from my children who live in the city under lockdown. As the day progressed, the whole country –…